[vladimirralev]

While many of these common-sense things do really have peer-reviewed research behind them, most of the others do not. Pretty much everything that is under-defined, vague or unintuitive is wrong. Fear of failure, comparing yourself to others, surrounding yourself with positive people and so on - these are bullshit in general with no scientific backup. There is in fact more evidence that if you isolate yourself in your happy place with everything positive and no fear of failure, you will eventually have to confront reality very hard at some point in your life. The only reason they work in the short to mid term is because they are sort of a religion-substitute.

[theorique]

Nowhere in my comment or in the literature does anyone advocate ignorance or avoidance of reality.

[vladimirralev]

I understand the difference between advocating something and stating facts or results of a study objectively.

For example, you refer to this blog where religion is mentioned which can be considered as both avoidance of reality and ignorance. I am not saying you or anybody advocates it.

And I just want to point out that many of these "happiness recipes" have no science behind them or at best some misinterpretation of a study. But I still agree that there are some legit studies as well (which are common-sense anyway though).